X3D V4 Open Meeting

X3D V4.0 Open Workshop / Meeting June 8th 2016

Topics

• What level of X3D integration into HTML5 do we want?
  • Do we want to be fully integrated like SVG?
• Do we want/need a DOM spec? If so:
  • Which DOM version should it be based on?
  • Do we want to fully support all DOM/HTML features?
• Do we want to maximize the backwards compatibility of V4.0 with V3.3? Or break away completely?
  • Do we want to retain SAI?
• What features do we want? For example,
  • How is animation to be handled? The X3D way of TimeSensor and ROUTEs, or an HTML way, such as CSS3 animations, or else JavaScript?
  • How is user interaction to be handled? The X3D way of Sensors, or the HTML way with event handlers?
  • Do we need any different nodes? One example might be a mesh node?
  • Do we want Scripts and Prototypes in HTML5?
  • How do we want to handle styling?
• What profile(s) do we need for HTML?

Attendees and contributors

E-mail contributors: Don Brutzman, Leonard Daly

Meeting Attendees:

Apologies: Don Brutzman, Andreas Plesch

Prior e-mail contributions:

Contribution 1

I think the bigger question of what should be done with X3D. Is X3D solely going to exist within HTML or will X3D have a separate life inside and outside of HTML.

If the life is solely within HTML, then the questions below become inclusive of all X3D. If there are separate existences, then the first question is what is the cross-compatibility between X3D/HTML and X3D/other.

Contribution 2

Relevant working-group references follow.  A lot of excellent work has been accomplished already.

	X3D Version 4
	http://www.web3d.org/x3d4

	Web3D Consortium Standards Strategy
	http://www.web3d.org/strategy

	X3D Graphics Standards: Specification Relationships
	http://www.web3d.org/specifications/X3dSpecificationRelationships.png

	X3D Version 4.0 Development
	http://www.web3d.org/wiki/index.php/X3D_version_4.0_Development

A 5-10 minute quicklook discussion across these resources might help.  We are pretty far up X3D4 Mountain already!

The posted discussion-topics list is a good start for renewed activity, and an important way to keep track of everyone's many valuable ideas.  Suggestion: create some kind of topics-discussion page, probably easily linked off the preceding wiki page.

My general inputs for each of these topics are guiding questions:

a. What do the HTML5/DOM/CSS/SVG/MathML specifications actually say?

b. How is cross-language HTML page integration actually accomplished, as shown in best practices by key exemplars?

c. What is the minimal addition needed to achieve a given technical goal using current X3D capabilities?

Editorial observation: the word "want" appears 9 times in this list...  Understandable from common usage, but not a very good way to achieve consensus over a long-term effort.  Also not very useful for measuring successful resolution.

Pragmatic engineering rephrase: "what problem are you trying to fix?"

Over 20 years of successful working-group + community efforts can guide us in these endeavors - we know how to succeed together.  An effective path for building consensus is to:
- define goals that are illustrated by use cases,
- derive technical requirements,
-  perform gap analysis, and then
-  execute loosely coordinated task accomplishment according to each participant's priorities.

How to execute each specification addition: write prose, create examples, implement, evaluate. Repeat until done, topic by topic.

References:

• X3D Version 4

• Web3D Consortium Standards Strategy [[1]]

• X3D Graphics Standards: Specification Relationships [[2]]

• X3D Version 4.0 Development [[3]]